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As with what they drink brandy – the rule of “three K” and “Nikolashka”

A reasonable question, isn’t it? What are you drinking brandy with? Probably, in a popular way, with lemon? And maybe with Coke, is it really fashionable – to mix brandy with Coca? The main thing here is not to overdo it and not to pour some collection specimen of 40-year-old exposure to meat-eroding liquid, otherwise it will be called an idiot. I admit, he himself happened to “wave” Koktebel C grade (let him rest in peace) inside, like an ordinary vodka. But we are not savages? Not! So let’s be enlightened, mind wise recruited. So, how to drink brandy, and most importantly with what?

Why not drink brandy
Grape brandy is made in almost all countries where grapes grow. The most famous brandy in the world is brandy, although Armagnac and good Georgian and Armenian brandies deserve no less respect. There are worthy samples of brandy in California, South Africa, Spain, Germany, and other things … They even drive out of oilcake, if you remember, there is grappa in Italy and chacha in Georgia. But not about that now. How to drink brandy? In Russia there are many misconceptions about this.

For example, there are still people who make the Nikolashka snack to cognac. Tsar Nicholas, now extolled, was not only a completely powerless and senseless ruler, he was not a big fool to drink. And, according to rumors, he loved such a snack, hence the name. Pour ground coffee on a slice of lemon and sprinkle with sugar. As the spouse watched how he abused, he was often served brandy in a teapot (the color is the same) and now with this snack. The smile on my face didn’t crawl when I looked through Google pages for a long time with recipes of Nikolashka (there is a separate article even on Vicky) – a delicacy, an ept …

In Russia, it is customary to drink cognac for Nikolashka snack
Even a cocktail was invented, Nikolashka is a cognac with lemon, sprinkled with coffee and sugar. And if there is also vodka instead of brandy, and an orange instead of lemon, then this will be the Vodka-Nikolashka cocktail. Generally sbrendili …

Maybe “Nikolashka” and a good snack, but not to cognac. To surrogate cognac, produced somewhere in Dagestan or Moldova, and, most likely, even spilled somewhere in the Moscow state farm with a fake label of Moldovan or Dagestan cognac, is probably suitable. And to a good brandy – in no case. And the lemon with its acid and essential oils, and coffee with its strong smell completely kill the taste of brandy. Again, if you drink something disgusting, Nikolashka will ennoble her. And the coffee and zest slightly “clog up” the alcoholic “exhaust”.

Now how to drink brandy
Let’s start with the serving dishes, as rough as it sounds. In common people, these glasses are called “cognacs”. In narrower, intelligent circles such glasses are called “snifter” (from the English. “Sniff” – sniff). The glass was made specifically so that aroma, brandy and other noble drinks were concentrated in its big-bellied walls. In the snifters brandy is poured to the level of the widest part of the glass, but in general, 30-40 ml will be quite enough to appreciate all the advantages of the drink in your hands. Also for tasting purebred brandy will suit the usual tasting glass such as “tulip”, of which it is preferable to drink and whiskey.

These are tasting glasses from which you can drink brandy and whiskey.
This is how different snifters and tasting glasses for cognac and whiskey look like.

Now about the tasting. Pour 30-40 ml of drink into the glass and touch your outer wall with your finger. Now turn the glass upside down and see if your fingerprint is visible through the drink. If so, then you have a good copy that deserves to drink it. Then rotate the glass around its axis and follow the behavior of cognac on the walls of the glass, that is, how quickly it flows down on them. With aging, cognac becomes stiffer, more dense. If trickles are visible for 5 seconds, then you have a 5-8 year old drink in front of you, if 15 seconds is about 20 years old. Collectible copies with an exposure of more than 50 years leave behind a “trace” for 17-18 seconds.

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